October Press Release

October Press Release: What If the War of 1812 Started Over Canadian Bacon?

OCTOBER PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The history you learned in school left out the monsters, the black programs, the genetically engineered soldiers, and one remarkably stupid international incident involving breakfast meat.

WELLSVILLE, Pa. — In the Countdown to Armageddon series, recorded history is only the version humanity was allowed to keep.

For centuries, a hidden American organization has fought wars that never appeared in textbooks. Werewolves operated behind the American Revolution. Vampires exploited the bloodshed of the Civil War. Nazi occult programs pursued weapons considerably worse than anything conventional science could produce. And somewhere along the way, cursed Canadian bacon helped turn an international dispute into the War of 1812.

Behind it all is the Paranormal Investigation and Research Defense Division, or PIRDD, descended from a secret organization whose roots reach back before the United States itself. PIRDD investigates and fights threats involving hostile supernatural entities, occult organizations, experimental technology, dimensional phenomena, and enemies willing to combine fringe science with things sane people would rather pretend do not exist.

That hidden war becomes the backbone of Charles E. Snyder III’s Countdown to Armageddon, a military-apocalyptic science-fiction series combining modern warfare, supernatural horror, advanced technology, dark humor, faith, sacrifice, and the consequences soldiers carry after the shooting stops.

Book I: The Book of Daniel

After an impossible attack kills members of his Green Beret team, First Lieutenant Daniel Penn is left with wounds, unanswered questions, and an official explanation that does not explain much of anything. Brigadier General Alexander Winters offers him something the conventional military cannot: answers.

Penn is recruited into PIRDD, promoted to captain, and given access to experimental weapons, advanced aircraft, specialized personnel, and classified programs that expose an entirely different battlefield. Monsters are real. Ancient evil is real. Genetic experimentation has produced soldiers who should not exist according to everything Penn previously understood about biology, warfare, and the world itself.

But The Book of Daniel is not simply about discovering monsters.

Penn must learn whom he can trust, what kind of commander he intends to become, and what he is willing to sacrifice when the hidden war stops remaining hidden. The deeper he goes, the harder it becomes to separate experimental weapons from living beings, classified necessity from institutional failure, and supernatural evil from humanity’s considerable ability to create horrors all by itself.

The Book of Daniel launches the series as a military-apocalyptic story built around war, sacrifice, faith, dark humor, and humanity’s increasingly desperate fight for survival.

Dive deeper into the first book of the series. Book I: The Book of Daniel.

Book II: The Dogs of War

Fresh out of West Point and carrying a Pennsylvania Amish upbringing into a military world he is still learning to navigate, Stolzfus arrives at Lackland-Kelly Air Force Base as a replacement officer with almost no idea what is happening.

Soon, that base is under attack. He is handed equipment stripped from casualties, thrown into the Battle of the Kennel, and confronted with thousands of bipedal genetically engineered canine soldiers known as Chimeras. During the fighting, one of those soldiers dies protecting him, an act that Stolzfus cannot reconcile with the idea that the Chimeras are merely weapons or government property.

That question becomes impossible to ignore when Stolzfus is assigned command responsibility for Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, three Chimera soldiers accused of murdering a human officer.

Captain Daniel Penn is ordered to investigate them.

What initially appears to be an open-and-shut killing becomes something much uglier. The accused were attacked first. Their treatment afterward exposes institutional abuse, political pressure, and a military that has created intelligent soldiers without deciding whether those soldiers are people. Stolzfus unexpectedly becomes their defense advocate during a hearing whose implications extend far beyond three defendants.

For the inexperienced lieutenant, the question stops being theoretical: What does a soldier owe another soldier when everyone else insists that one of them is property?

As Stolzfus grows from an overwhelmed young officer into a functioning combat leader, Penn begins assembling something the military establishment never intended to create: a force in which American, Canadian, and Chimera soldiers train, fight, and depend on each other as one unit. Stolzfus increasingly learns to command that force on his own, making tactical decisions and carrying responsibility rather than simply waiting for Penn to provide the answer.

Meanwhile, the hidden war keeps expanding. Conventional combat collides with supernatural forces, civilization begins fracturing, and an engineered biological threat threatens to transform the conflict into something much larger than another war between nations.

Dive deeper into the second book of the series. Book II: The Dogs of War.

October Press Release: Book I Is Here, Book II Is Coming Soon

October Press Release:
The Countdown to Armageddon series is written for readers who enjoy military science fiction, military horror, alternate history, speculative technology, supernatural warfare, and characters wrestling with real life issues. Such as faith, duty, loyalty, and sacrifice.

Also, it makes no attempt to sand away or sanitize military culture, profanity, violence, dark humor, Christian themes or deeply flawed characters simply to make some reader comfortable.

The books are intended to entertain first, while giving readers plenty to think about and argue over.

Book I: The Book of Daniel is available now in ebook and print editions.
It asks Daniel Penn to discover what has been hiding behind the world he thought he knew.

Book II: The Dogs of War is available for pre-order ahead of its November 11 release.
It asks Ezekiel Stolzfus what he is going to do about Penn’s offer.